End nationalism

SUPPORT FOR THE SOCIALIST PARTY
IS SUPPORT FOR WORLD SOCIALISM

Before the rise of class society, and even until comparatively modern times before communications and transport broke down geographical barriers, the workers did have an interest in the country of their birth. But now that we have all become wage earners, the basis of patriotism has gone. Still the sentiment persists and the master class who control the forces and services of the State are able to identify their own private interests with the patriotism of the class which has now no stake in the country. 

With the weakening power of religion to keep the workers docile and obedient, the cult of nationalism and patriotism is being exploited to the full for the furtherance of the damnable policy of the slave-holding class: to divide and rule. Like religion, patriotism has its vestments, its ceremonies, its sacred emblems, its sacred hymns and inspired music; all of which are called in aid of the class interests of our masters. Patriotic nationalism is nothing more or less than a convenient and potent instrument of domination. Patriotism is the handmaiden of class rule. The nation they call “ours” is the result of a conquest over original inhabitants, and over ourselves, by successive ruling classes.  We possess no country.  Patriotism is a fraudulent thing. The “country” is that of the owning class alone. Patriotism is not love of your country. Patriotism is love for someone else’s country. You see, the UK and its resources are owned by a few corporations and a handful of families - it is their country and not ours.

What is the fatherland and our motherland ? Our fathers and mothers came from many different parts of the world. Rather humankind are my brethren, the world is my country. Despite the shameless attempts by the robber class, the great impulse to human solidarity is by no means dead.  In the class struggle of the workers against the employers and exploiters, of the socially useful against the socially pernicious, in this struggle for the liberation of humanity from wage-slavery, the great principle of human solidarity will come to full fruition. That is our hope and aspiration. For us, all nationalism is destructive of human values, simply pitting one section of the working class against another with the sole aim of furthering the capitalist cause. The people of the world are worth more than that, much more. They are part of a world society which collectively could choose to work for peace, justice and prosperity for all in our time, putting aside the divisive issues of capitalism and recognising at last that with socialism unity is strength.

Patriotism festers politics like a weeping sore. It does not represent progressive ideas Enormous damage has been done, throughout the world, by the notion that one country and its people are superior to the others. A truly progressive policy – socialism – recognises the essential unity of the human race and the urgent need to celebrate it by building society on that basis. Socialism would be worldwide, with no nation states, no borders, and the common ownership of the whole Earth by the whole of humanity.  No one would be an immigrant or emigrant in a socialist world without states and therefore without boundaries. It’s like saying a person born and raised in Hampshire or Surrey who then moves to Berkshire is an immigrant.  Socialists dont prescribe where people, let alone “masses” of people,  should live or move to in a socialist world.  It’s entirely up to them as free individuals in a free society

The nation state did not materalise out of thin air.  Still less did it always exist as some kind of  looming background presence or potentiality way back in the mists of time as nationalist mythology would have it.  Rather, it  was an almost deliberately crafted invention (see Benedict Anderson's book, "Imagined Communities") the outcome of a complex process of structural and spatial reorganisation coinciding the emergence of capitalism. In Europe in 1500. for instance,  there were approximately 500 more or less autonomous  political units - an intricate patchwork ranging from Italian city states to numerous principalities  and duchies. France was not the natural expression of a pre-existing French nation. At the revolution in 1789, half its residents did not speak French. In 1860, when Italy unified, only 2.5 per cent of residents regularly spoke standard Italian. Its leaders spoke French to each other. One famously said that, having created Italy, they now had to create Italians.

Patriotism is not supportable with fact and reason but by deception and prejudice. That is why it is so quickly inflates into racism, prejudice and discrimination. One of the strongest holds the capitalists have over the minds of the workers is the workers' ready acceptance of the dogmas of patriotism. 

The problem that belief in a nation has grown stronger and has become more of an obstacle for achieving socialism. People have adopted a belief that nations, even continents in respect to European "civilisation". As for us, the Socialist Party, we have discarded the flag and disowned the so many deeds of butchery committed in our name. All over the world, in every capitalist state, there are masses of people who depend for their living on the sale of their labour power. Internationally, these people have a common interest which is opposed to that of their ruling classes.  This has been true for as long as there has been a society of two classes - for as long as capitalism has existed. In wars, for example, the workers who were fighting and killing each other were doing so in ignorance of their international common interests. Instead of firing at each other, they should be extending the hand of fraternal greeting and unity. The unity of socialism will unleash, for the first time in history, the full powers of the human race. Socialism will be established by a people who have seen through the divisive cynicism of patriotism.